2011 European GP FP2 analysis

Lewis Hamilton says McLaren can go quicker having been second fastest behind Fernando Alonso in Valencia on Friday.

Here’s all the data from the second practice session for the European Grand Prix.

Longest stint comparison

Pirelli’s Paul Hembery gave an estimate for how long each type of tyre should last in the race: “With the new medium tyre, we should see a range of about 30 laps on race day and about 20 laps for the soft tyre, putting us on course to meet our targets for this event.” That would mean drivers could complete the distance with two pit stops.

Nick Heidfeld was especially pleased with his final stint: “I had my best long run ever in the afternoon session in terms of not encountering traffic; it was amazing and very good for learning about the car. I could make some changes from the steering wheel which was possible with having such a long run, and also it was good for learning the tyre characteristics of the new medium compound.”

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Sebastian Vettel

103.309

103.538

106.604

102.847

103.011

103.001

103.045

114.082

102.382

116.651

102.559

132.749

Mark Webber

103.605

103.096

102.659

103.098

109.315

103.467

102.555

102.518

102.994

111.147

106.74

102.856

107.745

Lewis Hamilton

103.38

104.05

107.835

103.408

106.18

109.153

104.343

106.484

104.708

Jenson Button

104.925

105.006

104.483

107.963

103.985

103.822

104.073

Fernando Alonso

103.666

104.362

110.678

103.89

107.077

104.379

Felipe Massa

104.009

103.992

103.574

104.572

104.118

106.143

105.44

104.344

Michael Schumacher

105.331

104.944

104.941

106.637

105.088

105.244

105.366

105.181

105.316

Nico Rosberg

105.87

105.416

105.844

111.938

108.604

109.439

105.373

109.307

105.573

105.672

106.106

106.411

108.087

Nick Heidfeld

105.565

105.337

105.138

105.178

104.935

105.219

104.592

105.129

105.505

105.98

105.835

106.328

106.946

Vitaly Petrov

105.267

104.914

105.827

104.812

105.589

106.134

105.736

105.761

105.472

Rubens Barrichello

105.978

105.702

105.353

111.659

105.294

108.15

107.977

106.851

107.758

115.495

106.786

110.024

107.225

Pastor Maldonado

106.48

105.831

105.769

105.619

106.408

106.158

106.282

105.987

106.523

106.858

107.613

Adrian Sutil

103.89

104.152

104.483

105.041

103.954

104.218

104.992

Paul di Resta

101.192

100.726

111.824

100.363

105.66

Kamui Kobayashi

109.119

106.363

106.07

106.502

106.55

106.345

106.685

Sergio Perez

105.329

105.257

105.447

105.783

105.263

105.135

105.089

104.921

105.172

105.486

105.686

107.374

105.763

105.761

107.342

Sebastien Buemi

104.932

103.273

107.761

103.114

107.964

102.873

103.094

Jaime Alguersuari

Heikki Kovalainen

106.169

106.334

106.097

106.336

106.525

106.738

107.042

108.1

107.996

106.751

106.626

107.436

108.597

107.831

Jarno Trulli

108.769

107.317

111.589

106.341

106.021

Narain Karthikeyan

112.881

108.962

120.077

111.317

124.339

107.557

Vitantonio Liuzzi

107.943

107.715

109.046

111.602

108.636

109.856

116.987

109.814

Timo Glock

113.496

104.063

106.692

Jerome d’Ambrosio

107.326

107.28

108.244

109.154

108.498

108.322

108.782

107.845

107.58

Ultimate lap times

An ultimate lap time is a driver’s best three sectors added together.

Kamui Kobayashi flat-spotted his front-right soft tyre soon after putting it on and felt he could have found more time.

Both Renault drivers got clean laps on the soft tyres. Vitaly Petrov said they were “around 1.5 seconds quicker than the mediums.”

Car

Driver

Car

Ultimate lap

Gap

Deficit to best

1

5

Fernando Alonso

Ferrari

1’37.881

0.087

2

1

Sebastian Vettel

Red Bull-Renault

1’38.086

0.205

0.179

3

3

Lewis Hamilton

McLaren-Mercedes

1’38.136

0.255

0.059

4

7

Michael Schumacher

Mercedes

1’38.315

0.434

0.000

5

2

Mark Webber

Red Bull-Renault

1’38.403

0.522

0.128

6

6

Felipe Massa

Ferrari

1’38.443

0.562

0.000

7

4

Jenson Button

McLaren-Mercedes

1’38.444

0.563

0.039

8

8

Nico Rosberg

Mercedes

1’38.750

0.869

0.231

9

9

Nick Heidfeld

Renault

1’39.040

1.159

0.000

10

10

Vitaly Petrov

Renault

1’39.586

1.705

0.000

11

14

Adrian Sutil

Force India-Mercedes

1’39.613

1.732

0.013

12

11

Rubens Barrichello

Williams-Cosworth

1’40.020

2.139

0.000

13

17

Sergio Perez

Sauber-Ferrari

1’40.118

2.237

0.413

14

12

Pastor Maldonado

Williams-Cosworth

1’40.173

2.292

0.128

15

18

Sebastien Buemi

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

1’40.185

2.304

0.269

16

15

Paul di Resta

Force India-Mercedes

1’40.363

2.482

0.000

17

16

Kamui Kobayashi

Sauber-Ferrari

1’41.852

3.971

0.231

18

20

Heikki Kovalainen

Lotus-Renault

1’41.981

4.100

0.175

19

21

Jarno Trulli

Lotus-Renault

1’42.239

4.358

0.000

20

24

Timo Glock

Virgin-Cosworth

1’42.273

4.392

0.000

21

25

Jerome d’Ambrosio

Virgin-Cosworth

1’42.516

4.635

0.293

22

23

Vitantonio Liuzzi

HRT-Cosworth

1’44.400

6.519

0.060

23

22

Narain Karthikeyan

HRT-Cosworth

1’46.862

8.981

0.044

Complete practice times

Lewis Hamilton was second overall but expects to be competitive, saying: “I think we?óÔéĽÔäóve got some more pace up our sleeves for the rest of the weekend.”

But McLaren are having some difficulties with the new medium tyre. Hamilton said it was “difficult to switch on” and team principal Martin Whitmarsh admitted: “both Lewis and Jenson were unable to achieve a truly satisfactory balance with it.”

Michael Schumacher was fourth but doesn’t expect to be in the top three on Sunday. He said: “under normal circumstances we will not yet be strong enough to fight for the podium, and will most likely find ourselves starting around the fourth row.”

Going the opposite way, because it’s a street circuit I could see some drivers gambling on and thus forcing others into a three-stop race, a bit like how Turkey went from three to four stops. The two DRS zones may make that a viable option.

But I would love to see a front-runner try 1 stop! What I find strange is that Pirelli think the soft will go 20 laps and the medium 30, that’s 50 of the 57 laps gone. So I wouldn’t bet against it.

There’s only two real street circuits on the calendar. Monaco and Singapore. The other circuits are more temporary than street. Not necessarily the same thing. Valencia doesn’t even have any road markings and was designed by Tilke, it’s not a street circuit.

Melbourne is a street circuit or rather its a Race track that half of it is used as a main road for the rest of the year and the another quarter is used a minor road. There is only a small section of Melbourne that you can’t drive on outside of race week.

Believe me plenty of traffic use the track as a normal road, which is why some people get upset during the race weekend as they don’t have their nice little shortcut anymore.

to be fair he still has an hour in FP3, then q1, q2, and possibly q3.
there’s at least an hour and a half for him to drive on before the race.
and we’ve seen he’s very very quick at adapting to circuits and going fast in no time.
Complain if he crashes on the first lap of the race.
I hate it when people complain before there’s anything to complain about

He has. I can’t imagine he’s under any pressure to really challenge for the podium, just to beat his team mate. He’s doing a great job of that. I’m sure he will be frustrated at not being at the wheel long enough today though.

What a difference a couple of hours makes. Alonso was around .5s behind Webber on the FP1 ultimate lap timings (including 2 session best sectors) and he’s not .2s AHEAD of Webber? That’s a lot of downforce to find.

Apparently they were testing this wing in Canada too. At the moment they’re looking to develop a wing that has a greater effect when the DRS is open but apparently this can lead to less efficiency in the closed position, so they’re trying to work out how to get the best of both worlds.

If they’ve succeeded – and perhaps Hamilton is alluding to this – then it should give them an extra boost in qualifying.

Everyone can go quicker so it’s no news what Lewis is saying. Don’t understand why people argue about it either? I think it’s only because he is the one saying it..

I think Vettel will be beaten for pole tommorrow by Alonso. I definetly hope so. The new rule for the engine mapping must hurt Red Bull’s pace in qualifying. I can’t imagine it doesn’t. I do hope Newey isn’t coming with another hole in the regulations on this.